Making Peace With the Past
by cheekymice
Summary: Written for the OCSFC3 challenge. Silverweaver's sentence...'Ryan decides to rekindle his relationship with his father.'


**Title:** Making Peace With the Past.  
**Rating:** PG.**  
Beta:****melanie39**. A huge big thanks to Mel for helping me clean up this.**  
Disclaimer:** I don't own The OC, Ryan or Benjamin McKenzie.**  
Story:** Mildly angsty.**  
Notes:** Written for the OCSFC 3 for **silverweave**r 

My sentences were:

1) I still want the OC-ER crossover crack!fic of doom. Serious or silly; Lindsay and Ryan for definite, if you go silly, bonus points for Carter and Benton doing it in Trauma One.  
2) Julie's sister helps her pick up the pieces after Marissa.**  
3) Ryan decides to rekindle his relationship with his father.**

**Making Peace With the Past.**

_My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. Clarence Budington Kelland_

It was three weeks since the accident, twenty-one days since I watched Marissa die and I'd been doing a lot of thinking. I had spent many hours walking alone along the beach trying to put things into a context I could understand. I'd failed, I still couldn't grasp the emormity of what had happened but I think I'd managed to come out the other side. The black thoughts that had plagued me those first two weeks after the accident no longer had a hold over me, they'd receded to a manageable level even if they'd not completely gone. I felt better able to cope now. I don't think I am cracking up anymore.

I did a lot of thinking about a lot of different things on those walks. Despair makes you dredge up stuff that you wished had stayed buried. I didn't just analyze what had happened to Marissa, her death had opened up a Grand Canyon of issues for me and now was as good a time as any to address them I figured. Kind of like special day at the market.

When Marissa told me her plans I had decided it was best to let her go on her big adventure with no big dramas, no pleading 'please stay' even though a big part of me wanted to. We had had enough drama to last a lifetime and I didn't want to make this another emotional rollercoaster for us. I thought that we would simply pick up where we left off when she got back because that was what we always did.

You see, I'd wanted to say so much to Marissa but hadn't had the chance. It was like I'd have all the time in the world to say the words I'd always been meaning to say but had never quite had the balls to. Then time was snatched away and I was holding her broken body in my lap while she took her last shuddering breath in my arms. I never got the chance to tell her that I still loved her, would always love her, even if our time together was always overly complicated. It shocked me, the quickness of it all. Life could be taken away in the blink of an eye and there was nothing you could do about it. You didn't get second chances.

So I got to thinking…would I feel the same regret if anything were to happen to my father knowing that I had never made any effort to visit him? I had so many things I wanted to say to him. I'd had many conversations with him in my mind over the years but had never considered visiting him before. I guess eight years was a long time to come to this realization but my perspective of life had changed drastically with Marissa's passing. I wanted to tie up all the unfinished business that my childhood held over me so I could face the next chapter of my life with a clearer head. Maybe then I could move on.

Once I'd made the decision it had been easy. I was all about ignoring things but once I'd made up my mind about something then I followed through. I'd gone to Sandy the very next morning and quietly made my request. I saw the look of hurt that briefly shifted across his face at my petition. I know he felt like it was a major betrayal on my behalf…that he thought I was inexplicably reaching out to my father for help and comfort at this bleak period in my life when I'd turned my back on the Cohens' gentle words of comfort. I know that Sandy, Seth and Kirsten were all worried about me post Marissa but I had just wanted to grieve on my own and this decision had nothing to do with that. This was a separate issue and I told Sandy that. He listened as I tried to explain my feelings. He nodded his head when I finished and said he'd contact the prison and ask my father for a visit slip. He patted me on the shoulder sadly as if he still didn't really understand. I felt like I'd let him down, that I had to give him something to make him see that I wasn't pushing them away so that evening I sat in the den and watched TV. It was the first time since the accident that I'd willingly come into the main house without first having to be cajoled. The Cohens relieved and silent smiles made the tenseness I felt in my stomach over my decision ease slightly. They would always be there for me; I was only just starting to understand this after three years. I propped my feet up on the coffee table and thought about my father. Would he even want to see me after all this time?

The pink oblong visiting slip arrived three days later. Sandy drove me to the prison and didn't try to talk me out of wanting to go inside alone. I think he finally understood that I needed to do this my way… or I would not be able to do it at all.

I stood inside the institutional gray building ten minutes later being patted down by a guy who looked like he was an extra from 'The Sopranos'. His deep Bronx accent asked me if I was carrying any weapons. The California sunlight filtered through the metal threaded glass of the window and finally it sunk home, I was going to see my father.

I sat down at a square wooden table and waited. I looked around the room. I saw the same visitors I'd seen when I'd been in juvie, the care worn girlfriends and wives, the mothers and fathers and the young kids who sat and kicked their heels not remotely fazed about the situation anymore. I caught the eye of a gray haired lady as she smoothed down her cardigan and she smiled, offering me the solidarity of the free. The doors slid open and men of all shapes and sizes started to flow through into the room. Eyes searched the tables and waves were traded. I almost got up and left at that point. Anxiety crept into every pore of my body. Should I even be here after all this time? My head started to spin, the blood pounding in my ears. I took a deep breath to calm myself. I could do this…I could. I looked around me again.

I watched, wondering whether after all this time I'd even recognize my father. I needn't have worried. I saw a man enter the room after a big Latino guy and knew it was him instantly. He was just as I remembered him; he stood at the back of the room looking at each of the tables around him with a worried frown on his face. It was strange seeing him after all this time, the same dark blond hair and grey hooded eyes, even the way he held his head hadn't changed. I stared at him for a moment, my heart beating hard in my chest.

I realized that the intervening years didn't really make a difference to an adult face; he looked more tired than I remembered but essentially the same. It was me who'd changed beyond recognition. The last time he'd seen me I'd been ten and I knew he'd struggle more to identify me than I had him. His eyes flitted over me briefly but then he carried on searching the room. I felt disappointment that he _hadn't_ recognized me but then I was no longer the pale, skinny kid that he remembered.

I felt a rush of emotions, remembering the times he'd picked me up when I'd fallen, when he'd sat on the end of my bed telling me bedtime stories, the embraces and the tangy smell of his aftershave in the mornings, the way he'd let me help when he fixed the car and the times he'd let me come with him to work on the weekends. I wasn't prepared for all the strong feelings that assaulted me. I'd come here to lay some ghosts and that was it… I'd thought. I thought I could be clinical about this.

I stood up, my chair scraping across the floor and he glanced my way. We stared at each other and it was like the last eight years hadn't happened. He walked over to where I stood and I couldn't stop myself. Maybe it was because I never got to say goodbye when they took him but I leant forward and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around my back and gave me a firm bear hug just like I remembered and I shut my eyes and let myself become the ten year old I'd once been. The call of 'no contact' from a guard pulled us apart. We both looked embarrassed. I think the hug shocked my dad as much as it did me.

Our conversation was stilted. Again I think my father was confused as to why I'd come after all this time. We politely talked about nothing for a while, skirting around any real issues, then he asked after mom and Trey as if we were still a family. I realised that he knew nothing about what had gone on in his absence. Shortly after he'd been sentenced my parents had divorced, it seemed that we had all cut him out of the family. I remember at first asking to see him because I thought that is what I should do but then I had simply stopped asking. I think at that point in my life I had started to have other things to worry about.

I shuffled in my chair uncomfortably as it came home to me just why we'd all happily wiped him from our lives. The reason I was here.

I lowered my head.

Along with all the good times there were the many bad ones. For every hug there had been a belting so hard I couldn't sit down for days, for every bedtime story there had been a drunken rage and for every weekend spent handing him monkey wrenches and spanners there had been his face inches from mine telling me that I was a useless little fucker who should have been aborted.

I wanted to say so much for so many years but now I sat in front of him I realized there was no point. If I asked why he'd been like he'd been back then would it help me? No, it was just who he was. He'd try and justify it in some way. He'd probably blanked out most of the drunken beatings and all the acrimony that had seeped into the walls of the Atwood family home would not have been his fault. My father would not have won any awards and he was certainly not the worst thing I'd had to contend with but he was my father so it had hurt the most I guess. And as harsh at times as it had been, it had made me into the man I am now- whether that was a good or bad thing I leave that up to other people to decide.

It is much easier to become a father than to _be_ one and I think my father found that out the hard way and nothing he or I could say would change anything after all these years. He might say sorry for the way he acted back then but that wouldn't make me feel better. There was too much damage buried and he wasn't the same man as he was back then. Prison would have changed him, my few times in juvie had taught me that, as brief as they had been. I still felt the place ingrained under my skin making me dirty so god knows what effect it had on my father after all this time. Whether the change was for the better or the worse would be up to my father. I'm not sure I was strong enough to find out which path he'd chosen.

I felt deflated. I felt like a fucking coward for coming all this way and not confronting him but I really felt what was the use. After all this time it would be kind of redundant. Seeing him again _had_ at least laid some ghosts, he was just a man. Like the other men who'd made my childhood hell…and what was I going to do there, track each one down too and ask why? In their minds they probably didn't think they'd done anything out of the ordinary that warranted an apology. I felt… stupid.

I got up to leave with a mumbled apology. My father looked taken aback by my sudden turn around, disappointed, apprehensive.

As I looked at him wondering how I could best exstract myself from the situation I could see the faint hope dance in his eyes when he asked if I'd be visiting again. My brain worked fast. I told him I was going away to college and he took that thankfully to mean no and said he understood. I looked at my father and now only saw weariness in his eyes and felt guilty. Guilty that I had opened the lines of communication after all this time only to now slam the door shut in his face. I'd been there less than twenty minutes, not much time when you consider he'd been rotting here for eight years. Then again, no one made him hold up the 7-11 and no one made him pistol whip the clerk so hard he now had to eat through a straw. I really should have been catholic the way I felt like everything was my fault; even after I thought about my father's crime I still felt the guilt envelop me like a grimy blanket.

Then my father used his trump card…He said it had been great to see me and called me son. I swallowed hard, a lump forming in the back of my throat. Sandy called me son but it never did sit well with me. I never called him on it because here was a man who had done so much for me, and who was I to take away that small pleasure from him? I don't even think he meant it in the true sense of the word, he used it like 'sport' or 'kid', I still didn't like it. But when my father called me son it felt right. For all the crap and bullshit he was my father and I was his son. Nothing would ever change that. The confusion came back as to what I was feeling. This was fucked up.

Being called son hit me hard.

I avoided his eye and said that I would be busy for a while settling into the heavy work schedules, it was going to be hectic for a time but after that…I'd try and come again. His eyes lit up and again I felt more guilt at the lie. I'd selfishly made peace with myself a little at seeing him and that was enough for me for now. I hadn't really thought what seeing me would be like for my father, what false hope it had given him. As I said Marissa's death had screwed me up and for all my thinking I guess I just hadn't really thought through the important things. I guess I wasn't as together as I thought. I could feel the sweat start to creep down my back and my hands started to tremble.

Maybe in a couple more years I'd be more able to deal with him, maybe not. I didn't know, I really didn't know.

We shook hands; the gesture seemed strangely formal after our hug but I just wanted to get out of there. I started to walk away and he called me back. I paused before I turned, shutting my eyes, wondering what now. My father was still seated but I saw the raw pleading in his eyes as he asked if maybe I could write to him. At that moment I knew that he'd worked out that I was not going to be back anytime soon and it was his last ditch attempt at holding on to something. I let out the breath I'd been holding. Writing? That I could do. I felt relief flood my body. Here was a way out. We could write to each other, open the lines of communication gradually and see where it took us. I nodded and he smiled back at me. Writing was easy, the coward in me said, as I walked back to the door where the guard stood to be let out.

I stood out in the sunlight and hoped that Sandy could not see me from where he'd parked. I did not want him to go back on red alert. I bent over at the waist not sure if I was going to be sick or if I just wanted to let the tension out of my body. It had seemed like I'd been holding my breath the whole time I'd been in there.

My father wasn't a monster but he'd played a big part in my nightmares.

I straightened up and scanned the car park. Sandy was leaning against the car talking into his phone when I approached. He ended the call when he saw me. I guess my body language gave me away because he frowned and asked me if everything was okay. I flinched when he added 'son'…I don't even think he knew he was doing it half the time. My head jerked up at the word.

'Please don't call me son any more, Sandy. I already have one father.'

The words came out sounding harsh and hard. I hadn't even meant to say them but I guess that also proves that I'm not as with it as I'd hoped. I watched as he swallowed, I could see his mind whirring for something to say and I saw the devastation on his face as my words sunk in. Shit. The sick feeling returned to my stomach.

'Sandy…I…I don't want you calling me son because it reminds me of my father...'

Sandy tried to process my words, I guess he was trying to work out what I meant.

Then I did it again…for the second time that day.

This time it was really for me, I needed it. I needed contact with someone who knew what I was feeling right now. He didn't even hesitate but wrapped his arms around my back and held tight. His simple words of 'I understand, kid' broke through my defences and the flood waters slowly seeped through the cracks in the dam wall, the cracks I'd been frantically trying to concrete over since that night twenty four days ago.

I was not one for the PDA and here I was going into overload it seemed. Sandy's embrace felt different from my father's, I think because I knew that I could really relax. I didn't have to have my guard up. Sandy would never be like my father, Sandy screwed up, and yeah he could be an asshole when he wanted but I always felt safe with him, never on edge as to what he'd do next.

Maybe my father had changed. Maybe he wasn't the angry man I remembered from my childhood anymore. I'd give it a go, take it slow and see where it took us. But not right away.

I still needed time…I needed Marissa... instead I'd have learn to lean on the people around me who wanted to help and once more tightly shut the box from the past.

Yeah, I was obviously still fucked up over what had happened but I _would _be okay…in time I would be.

I just wasn't sure when.

**Fin.**


End file.
